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Let's hope other countries do the same thing too.

Remember, agencies of the US government regularly attempt to influence elections overseas, and, oppose the natural desires of their electorate

Below are a selection of links about the same, from across the political spectrum that are quite well-documented.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0...

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

https://www.channel4.com/news/...

https://www.straitstimes.com/w...

https://www.telesurtv.net/engl...

http://www.latimes.com/nation/...

https://www.wnyc.org/story/his...

http://www.truth-out.org/opini...

https://www.foreignaffairs.com...

https://www.thenewamerican.com...

https://www.npr.org/2016/12/22...

https://www.politico.eu/articl...

https://www.strategic-culture....

the US actually has normal to LOW numbers of mass shooting deaths.

Compared to Guatemala, Somalia, FARC controlled Columbia - sure.

Now, compared to advanced countries? Nope.

And then there's this. Gun killings fell by 40 percent after Connecticut passed this law

But I'm sure that will fall on YOUR deaf ears.

If you don't live in California, you wish you lived in California.

No, not really. I lived in California for awhile. I was very happy to it as a I left it going back to sane states. A place where I can water my lawn and not paint it. Yes, they where painting their lawns green when I was there.

You may have one of the highest economies but it isn't a healthy economy, with 700B in debt. At 13.9% you also have the highest tax rate. Do you know what the tax rate in that my state is? It's 0%.

http://www.businessinsider.com...

You also have one of the fastest growing homeless problems. You share that with New York. Wonder what you and NY have in common?

https://endhomelessness.org/ho...

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

I have already address California's water dependency before so there is no need to rehash it. Other than to say with out taking water from other states California wouldn't be able to do any where near as much as it tries to do.

But the worse sin that California forces on the rest of the country is that shreeking fool Maxine Waters. You know if you would get rid of her then we could work together on the rest of your problems.

And yet hemp uses more energy to grow and process than cotton

Hemp production takes slightly more energy, but less water and land than cotton: "Overall, hemp appears to be slightly easier on the environment than cotton, superior on water and land requirements, and only slightly worse for energy use."

In general artificial fibres are superior to hemp in almost every way, and cheaper to create as well.

The way that energy use and the depletion of irreplaceable petroleum stocks are subsidized by our policy choices distorts those costs.

Way too nuanced. Indicates inconsistency.

Uh...what?

The 2016 Clinton campaign is a separate entity from the Clinton Foundation. The claim that this is a "nuance" is to claim that the difference between the American Red Cross and Stormfront is nuance.

So perhaps the headline should be ammended to say, "Technicalities were violated !!"

The law exists so that people can not use their government position to influence elections. The violation is not a technicality. The way to avoid a violation is.

True, but the dems fundraise on bringing it back. It has been brought to Congress several times since 1987.

Your claim was that the Fairness Doctrine is being used to shut down Rush Limbaugh. As in, actively used. Right now. Not "a small number of them want to pass a law bringing it back that probably can't survive a Constitutional challenge which then could possibly be used to shut down Rush Limbaugh.".

In other words, you're spouting bullshit. Just like your other "whatabouts".

So why did Lois Lerner turn herself in over nothing?

So there's this thing called "politics". It is heavily wrapped up in appearances. Quitting was used to help keep up appearances because the Obama administration's primary delusion was that Republicans are rational. Throwing a relatively low-level person under the bus was supposed to be used as a "see! We fixed the problem!" thing. But since Republicans are not rational, it became Obama personally reviewing every application and blocking the Tea Party ones out of spite. Reality be damned.

The internal policy explicitly directed IRS staff to target the tea party affiliated groups

The internal policy explicitly directed IRS staff to target political groups based on certain keywords. Some of those keywords matched with Tea Party groups. And some of those keywords matched with liberal groups.

So no, it was not targeting the Tea Party groups. Those horrible evil liberals also got delayed.

That the NYTimes has an opinion about this absolves nothing ... less than 30% of the US thinks that's an unbiased source. Politico has always been news for belt-way types.

Because killing the messenger always changes reality to conform to your beliefs.

Would you prefer the Inspector General that investigated it and blasted the IRS for the targeting of both left-wing and right-wing groups?
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

OMG! WASHINGTON POST!! IT MUST BE FAKE NEWS BECAUSE I DON'T LIKE IT!! Nevermind they're literally quoting the report....

They got a huge tax break instead of an all-but-guaranteed tax hike.

Yeah, actually not. Clinton's plan contained significant cost reductions for people making under $50K/yr. Under trump, we got tax cuts for millionaires and tax bills for the middle class.

Unemployment is way down.

Not for rural whites. In fact, its still so bad for them that Michigan republicans are trying to exempt them from their draconian medicaid work requirements.
Also, those people at that Carrier plant that he "saved?" Yeah, they got fucked.

The stock market is way up.

(A) Doesn't mean squat for majority of people because they don't own stocks.
(B) Rate of growth in the stock market is slower than it was under Obama.
(C) China has stopped buying soybeans. Not just tariffs, full stop, buying em from somewhere else. China is the #2 largest market for US soy and soy is the #2 US crop export.

Denuclearization, peace, and potential reunification in Korea,

Not anything to do with trump. The sanctions only resulted in a ~20% increase in black market currency exchange, showing that it wasn't a big deal for a country that survived the great faminine of the 90s on nothing but Juche. Moon Jae-in is leading trump around by the nose. Though I guess you could say the fact that trump is so easily played by Moon is a point in trump's favor. So sure, promise that gloryhound a nobel prize if that's what it takes to keep him from screwing up everybody else's work.

Tons of sex cults and human trafficking rings have been broken up.

Ah, so now you reveal yourself as one of those RWNJ dumbasses. In fact, its the nothing of the kind. If anything, they've been cracking down on easy targets - adult sex-workers, not trafficking victims. Meanwhile Trump knowingly endorsed an actual pedophile.

Corrupt leaders and former leaders of many countries are actually being brought to justice.

Yeah. Putin. Duterte. Netanyahu MBS They've all been locked up!!! Yay!

The wall is being built.

Lol. He couldn't even get his own republican party to pay for it. Much less mexico.

Next year there will be no unconstitutional personal mandate for health insurance.

Yay! That's already working out so great for republicans.
Never mind how he totally fucked rural whites with empty promises about the opioid epidemic.

Yeah - I'm going to keep adding more posts for you to down mod.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
http://connection.ebscohost.co...

The bias wasn't that they didn't look at left-wing groups, it was that a typical left-wing process might take a couple of months at worst while when looking at a tea party group, it would take years.

Actually, it took years for both. Again, the left-wing groups didn't whine about it, so they did not sue. Which means they did not get a settlement and an apology.

Inspector's General report:
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Overall story:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelli...

A settlement is not a complete story. It is about the groups involved in the litigation. So it is not actually evidence that only Tea Party groups had trouble.

Lets talk about how the DNC hack was an inside job. Hmm, I wonder if anyone remembers that part where file metadata showed the mail dump was copied from the server to a USB drive.

No? Don't remember who Seth Rich is?

Ok, lets circle jerk to the left's favorite conspiracy theory instead.

For those not up to speed on the latest conspiracy theories, it's been alleged that the DNC hack was an inside job. One of the "facts" supporting this theory is that the files were being transferred at 22.7 MB/s (based on file timestamps) faster than what could reasonably be expected over a standard internet connection at the time. However, it completely ignores the possibilities that there was fast internet available at the time, the ability to download multiple files to multiple computers (i.e. like a botnet), and the possibility that the files were downloaded to one computer, copied to a USB, then copied to another computer for upload. In other words, this "fact" doesn't prove anything.

In fact, since the release of this theory, a number of the original "authors" (which include former NSA experts) have since backtracked...

http://thehill.com/policy/cybe...

https://www.washingtonpost.com...
 

has a projected budget that averages out to about $37,400 per student.

I know there are considerations like property upkeep, and administration, but holy moly, why not just bus them to a nearby community college at that rate?

I'm not sure where you live, but your numbers seem to be wildly off.

The average is close to $11k, with the highest state at $21k.

I didn't finish my minor in math, but 957 Million and 27K students is pretty much larger than 11K per student...

I mean, after all, they have a 51% graduation rate.

Someone has got be getting rich from this...

has a projected budget that averages out to about $37,400 per student.

I know there are considerations like property upkeep, and administration, but holy moly, why not just bus them to a nearby community college at that rate?

I'm not sure where you live, but your numbers seem to be wildly off.

The average is close to $11k, with the highest state at $21k.

Wow AC, you're a complete bullshit artist. A good one, but a bullshit artist nonetheless. This case has nothing to do with trademark or copyright infringement. I especially like how you sympathize with the reader ("I think this is bullshit and you should too. BUT...") before leading them to the false conclusion. Craftsman's work sir.

Anyway, the core of the case is this: "But while software licenses transfer when computers change hands among individuals, commercial sellers like refurbishers must buy new licenses for $25, according to Microsoft."

Microsoft was "losing" $25.00 a pop. That's the core of this case. Absolutely nothing about trademark or copyright infringement. The prosecutors crafted their case with direct input from Microsoft.

From the WaPo article:

"Microsoft issued a statement Wednesday explaining why they participated in the prosecution of Lundgren, which was to discourage both counterfeiting and the spread of malware within counterfeit software... The idea of spreading dangerous malware was not discussed in Lundgren’s case. But Microsoft said that when a computer system is prepared for refurbishment, its hard drive is wiped clean of data and its original software. The license for the operating system does not transfer, as Lundgren claimed, and refurbishers are required to obtain new licenses which Microsoft offers at a discounted price of approximately $25, a Microsoft spokesman said.

Lundgren said he wasn’t sure when he would be surrendering. He said prosecutors in Miami told him he could have a couple of weeks to put his financial affairs in order, including plans for his company of more than 100 employees."

Ruthlessness is in Microsoft's DNA.

Where do you live? America?
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Damn, Bezos wants a $ for this too!

Where do you live? America?
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

While I don't think the tweets were helpful, Trump did push for tougher sanctions against North Korea. Meanwhile, Trump also offered to engage in direct talks with North Korea, something past presidents have refused to do. North Korea has walked to negotiate directly with the United States, while previous presidents have insisted that any negotiations should be part of the six party talks. Trump stepped up the pressure, calling it "maximum pressure", while offering North Korea something the direct negotiations they wanted and a possible way out of the sanctions. Both the United States and South Korea have been clear that denuclearization is necessary to get the sanctions lifted. That is a substantial difference from the strategy of past presidents, and is a logical approach to foreign policy.

The tougher sanctions likely had a significant impact on North Korea and made them more willing to negotiate. Trump's willingness for direct talks signaled a willingness for unprecedented direct talks. The tweets weren't helpful, but Trump's foreign policy did influence North Korea to make real concessions. Trump should get credit for that, and you're ignoring the real substance of his foreign policy.

I was thinking that originally but now I'm not sure it has anything to do with Trump.

NK is pursuing the same thing now it's always pursued, survival.

Previously this took the form of gaining deterrence, first artillery, then Nukes, and finally Nukes that can hit the US. Until they had those things they were never going to engage in serious negotiations.

But now they have all those things their deterrence is kinda maxed out, they can always improve their long range delivery, but realistically they've done the important thing which is prove they can deliver a Nuclear retaliation against the US.

NK isn't talking because of sanctions, or because Trump reached out, they're talking because they got what they've always wanted, Nuclear deterrence, and now they want stability. Denuclearization isn't really on the table, but as long as everyone knows they have long range Nukes they're probably content to stop testing.

Let's just hope that Trump's threats to about the Iran nuclear deal are an effort to get Iran to extend their promises past 2025 and not a sincere intent to withdraw. If Trump is taking the role of the bad cop while Macron has the role of the good cop to negotiate more with Iran, it may be effective. If Trump actually withdraws, that's incredibly foolish. Trump is just so erratic that it's hard to distinguish legitimate foreign policy from outbursts and uninformed bluster.

There's no good cop/bad cop play here. Trump took the narrative that the Iranian deal was a bad deal and ran with it all campaign, it's only through the desperate efforts of his cabinet that he's stayed in.

The problem with the "renegotiate" idea is that Trump has no leverage. It took Obama years to get Europe on board with the sanctions, if Trump decertifies the US sanctions come back but no one else will follow and Iran will be free to develop break-out capability again.

That's not saying the Trump can't negotiate other things with Iran (stop supporting X we'll stop sanctioning Y) but there's no better Nuclear deal to be had.

Here's a link to the real newsstory as referenced by the blogpost in the summary links to.

While I don't think the tweets were helpful, Trump did push for tougher sanctions against North Korea. Meanwhile, Trump also offered to engage in direct talks with North Korea, something past presidents have refused to do. North Korea has walked to negotiate directly with the United States, while previous presidents have insisted that any negotiations should be part of the six party talks. Trump stepped up the pressure, calling it "maximum pressure", while offering North Korea something the direct negotiations they wanted and a possible way out of the sanctions. Both the United States and South Korea have been clear that denuclearization is necessary to get the sanctions lifted. That is a substantial difference from the strategy of past presidents, and is a logical approach to foreign policy.

The tougher sanctions likely had a significant impact on North Korea and made them more willing to negotiate. Trump's willingness for direct talks signaled a willingness for unprecedented direct talks. The tweets weren't helpful, but Trump's foreign policy did influence North Korea to make real concessions. Trump should get credit for that, and you're ignoring the real substance of his foreign policy.

When the policies of several past presidents haven't worked, it's time to try something different. That's the same logic that Obama used to justify normalizing relations with Cuba, which is also a reasonable decision. Let's just hope that Trump's threats to about the Iran nuclear deal are an effort to get Iran to extend their promises past 2025 and not a sincere intent to withdraw. If Trump is taking the role of the bad cop while Macron has the role of the good cop to negotiate more with Iran, it may be effective. If Trump actually withdraws, that's incredibly foolish. Trump is just so erratic that it's hard to distinguish legitimate foreign policy from outbursts and uninformed bluster.

That had already happen under obama
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Massive is relative.

15 micrometer is only 0.015 mm. Massive would be 1,500 meters.
0.015 mm is massive compared to 10^-10 m.

Context matters.

They meant massive in the same way politicians did about the increase to people's take-home pay after passing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. As one woman tweeted (and Paul Ryan re-tweeted) it will pay for her annual Costco membership.

"massive" in the scale relative to your poorly conceived propaganda

Massive is relative.

15 micrometer is only 0.015 mm. Massive would be 1,500 meters.
0.015 mm is massive compared to 10^-10 m.

Context matters.

They meant massive in the same way politicians did about the increase to people's take-home pay after passing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. As one woman tweeted (and Paul Ryan re-tweeted) it will pay for her annual Costco membership.

The guy bought 48,000 discs at less than 5 cents/each.

He bought the discs in 2012, around the time of Windows 8 general release.

He intended to sell them to other computer recyclers for about 25 cents/each

He does not personally recycle PCs, so he was not going to include them with PCs with COAs.

He included the logo/likeness of the Dell recovery CDs on each one, so that they looked to the casual observer the same as the official restore CDs.

In case you have a hard time visualizing it, this Washington Post story has a picture of this guy laying on top of 48,000 install discs.

His conviction was for selling 28,000 discs for 15 cents each to a broker in Florida as part of a gov't sting.

Source: E-waste recycler Eric Lundgren loses appeal on computer restore disks, must serve 15-month prison term

This is about the FISA warrant that was used to spy on Trump's campaign. He was supposed to lose and the facts were never supposed to come out.

Are you talking about the fact Carter page was a well known tool for Russian intelligence?

Or the fact he was under FISA warrant a full year before Trump even announced his candidacy?

It's too late, unless someone from Hillary's campaign and the FBI goes to prison for this, every (non-incumbent/appointed successor) candidate's campaign will be spied on.

Trump's been in office a whole fucking year and he isn't competent enough even to staff his administration.

Trump's been in office a whole fucking year and more people have left his administration than any other presidency in the history of the United States.

What a load of bullshit.

There is a running tally.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

So were the 28,000 discs this fellow had pressed Windows 8.1 discs?

BTW, these discs were seized in 2012, right around the time Windows 8 was released to the public, Aug. 1st, 2012, so he was likely sharing Windows 7 or Windows XP recovery discs, not the (now) freely available Windows 8.1 image you linked to.

Thank you for the link, but the real question is what was Microsoft's policy for replacement install discs in 2012, not today.

Is it a jerk move on Microsoft's part, to prosecute this guy for helping people keep software working which they've already paid for? Sure, and they deserve to be publicly shamed for it.

This could not be more wrong.

1. Microsoft didn't prosecute him -- the federal government did.
2. According to the original WaPo article, Microsoft actually intervened to help Lundgren by explaining to the court that the value of the restore discs was only $25, not the $299 the prosecutors had originally alleged:

Initially, federal prosecutors valued the disks at $299 each, the cost of a brand-new Windows operating system, and Lundgren’s indictment claimed he had cost Microsoft $8.3 million in lost sales. By the time of sentencing, a Microsoft letter to Hurley and a Microsoft expert witness had reduced the value of the disks to $25 apiece, stating that was what Microsoft charged refurbishers for such disks.

See here. It's a full 180 on his previous position. A big part of this is the evangelical leaders stick with him no matter what. They in turn bring their followers with them.

The "normal" candidates (who would have done all the same policies as Trump but been nice about it) would have stayed in and fought if they thought they had a chance. They dropped out because Trump was destroying them. And the reason why is because those economic reasons I mentioned.

The #nevertrump crowd didn't stay home, so much for #nevertrump. At the end of the day the Republican party fell in line with Trump and Trump fell in line with Goldman Sachs. The party's been had. If you voted Trump or supported him you've been had. He's not the populist you wanted him to be. The sooner you acknowledge that the sooner we can start voting these bums out.

Or not. They're the American Royalty. Easier said than done getting rid of your kings and queens.

As to neural nets, this is totally irrelevant... why would the neural net be racist if it were simply instructed to hire people that had certain job experience and educational backgrounds?

You're just making things up at this point. Self teaching neural nets? Come on. Who do you think you're fooling with this crap? This is pathetic.

As to your link, the Guardian article wasn't addressing hiring software but rather a language association system. It wasn't actually biasing against anyone. It merely saw certain words used in certain contexts and made associations on that basis. Hiring software doesn't do that.

Strike one.

The New scientist article was talking about stop and frisk in New York as administered by HUMAN BEINGS and not computers. There's no citation in that article of evidence of actual racial bias on the part of a computer in that article. What is more, the methodology of how they determined something was racist by the NYPD was not specified. You clearly didn't read your citations.

Strike two.

The article from the Atlantic is referring to accusations made against a court reporter software... the issue was investigated...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

There are two or three papers I could send you that would explain why the accusation didn't made sense. Fuck it, here they are:
https://www.documentcloud.org/...

http://www.crj.org/assets/2017...

Strike three.

As to neural networks etc... why would the neural network be consistently biased against race X? I mean, if it is unpredictable then that shouldn't be consistent.

Think about it. You're making an argument that relies on some randomness and chaotic behavior and yet the results are very consistent. That makes your position indefensible. You can't argue that these black boxes programmed by different people, given different data sets, and given different critera are all going to be racist against the same group. That makes no sense. Such systems would be as likely to be biased against different groups or fixate on things entirely unrelated to race. I see no justification for the argument that hiring AIs would be racially obsessed and specifically biased against a given ethnic or racial group absent instruction to do so.

This is a translation of the whole "subconscious racism" argument that was spun up when the civil rights vultures ran out of actual racists to attack. So they had to start attacking non-racists otherwise who would need them? Now that we're moving on to machines you have to claim the robots are racists too.

Its sad.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

There you go 14 years of it.

The "opt in" is bullshit. Facebook is very opt out, and the information it was giving app developers was friends and friends of friends information, that never even knew the app existed.

In Australia for example, around 50 people used the app, which harvested the data of over 300,000 people.

They may not have bundled the data and handed it to them personally, but they were at least wilfully negligent.

...how many years Trump, sons and lawyers are going to collectively get lol?

Um... none?

You do realize that the Republicans sent a recommendation for prosecution to the AG for Hillary Clinton,
James Comey, Andrew McCabe, and Loretta Lynch, right?

Trump has been trying to have his political enemies jailed for awhile. That we elected him still means that this country has turned to shit and stupid.

Of that list, Hillary has been thoroughly investigated and there wasn't enough there to go further. Comey hasn't committed any crimes, unless thinking Trump is a clear and present danger to our country and doing what is legally possible is a crime. He did it after he was fired, and thus no longer had to follow FBI policy, though he does still have to protect classified info. No, he nor Clinton is not responsible for releasing any information if it was not classified at the time of release or use on an unclassified system.

McCabe apparently lied about informing a reporter. He has been fired and his pension taken from him despite he otherwise earning it. Seems enough to me. Lynch was just amazingly stupid to meet Bill on the tarmac. That is not a crime.

And unlike nebulous charge of "collusion", the recommendation letter lays out the specific actions these people took and the specific federal laws that were broken.

You probably didn't hear about that - the MSM was pretty quiet about it.

Your ultra special sources are the problem, with their conspiracy crap propping up a wanna be dictator. Stop using these fuckwits like Breitbart as a source. They are not remotely credible. I do like your bringing up Clinton's lie about having sec with an intern. *lol*

The republicans went all in for it, and he lost his law license, but in the end there wasn't enough there to impeach. Trump on the other hand is up to around lie 2500. Trump Lies.

Surely the American people deserve better? It is okay if Trump stays below 3000 lies, below 4000, below 10000, below a million? Is there any limit you right wingers would say, enough?

I suppose to a right winger lying continuously to the American people is not remotely as important as lying about an affair once under oath. Hell Trump is too big a chicken shit to even testify to Mueller under oath. He might even scrape by without prosecution. Who knows. I do know one thing about the Mueller probe. It is not all about Trump.

If Mueller fails to indict Trump it doesn't mean they failed at their jobs. Their jobs were to investigate and see what was there. They have already gotten others and do not seem remotely out of steam. Hell an offshoot of Mueller has apparently gotten Trump's lawyer with evidence damming enough a judge okayed a raid and the bar there was quite high.

EiA, who has never had a correct prediction, agrees with you. BTW, they have ALWAYS predicted that Fossil fuels will continue to grow except recently.
However, experts in the coal field of montana
Other Americans continue to point to coal rapid closing.
Here is the massive navajo plant that will most certainly close down. Note that this is America's single dirtiest plant going.
Nice article about the continuing closings of coal plants (assuming that Trump is not allowed to subsidize coal anymore than we currently do)

Finally, here is a partial list of coming US coal plants closures.

And, Hillary paid that spy according to Jeff Bezos:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/clinton-campaign-dnc-paid-for-research-that-led-to-russia-dossier/2017/10/24/226fabf0-b8e4-11e7-a908-a3470754bbb9_story.html

So you know he is a reputable source.

We pay for 13 years of education at no cost to the child is or the child's family... If the locals choose to reward teachers that fail to teach their students with higher paychecks, tenure, and life-long pension and healthcare rather that's on the community.

People aren't denied education, they simply mismanaged the resources provided to educate them.

Disclaimer: I'm a IT staff member in a public school district.

Given your low 4-digit UID, I assume you're an old fart. So let me spell out something for you.

There is mismanagement of resources, but placing the blame squarely at the feet of teachers is wrong.

Throwing money at education, much like anything else, doesn't guarantee success. Further, it's not like the students being educated are products at the local store. You can't just run in and pay for "education" in a can and always walk out with the exact same product every time. It's a craft, not a mass produced trinket from China. You will get imperfections and defects every time. Even more so once you realize the craft is being applied to substandard materials, IE. Children. These students are not adults with a desire to learn, they are kids who for all intensive purposes, are being held against their will, in a room by people they may not like, along with a bunch of other peers they may not like and may even be terrorized by, under the pretext of it being "good for them".

One of the biggest issues is the gamification of education. The No Child Left Behind Act is directly responsible for this mess because a bunch of politicians decided that everyone was perfect, and mandated by law perfection, with showering of money for showing constant "growth" in student proficiencies, and pink slip Russian roulette for constant "regression". Cue the pubic school districts wanting free money or to avoid losing their jobs bumping up the test scores, and being found out. All of that's before you get into the misuse of the Standardized Test Scores. Plus it's getting worse, what with our US Department of Education Secretary being a privatization of education proponent, e.g. Charter Schools which have a profit incentive to ensure low passage rates and high tuition costs as a business model, who's supporters say she should step down, and state governors like Matt Bevin (KY) who wants to use public funds to support said for profits, while at the same time cutting public education funds saying the money isn't there. Long story short, you can't gamify a person's continued employment completely based on the input from others and expect the results to be good.

And before you say: "We'll that's what they get for not teaching them." Remember that the Standardized Tests are Multiple Choice tests for the sole purpose of expedient grading. They are not a valid method to determine a person’s knowledge because it's perfectly possible to ace the test without knowing any of the answers through sheer probability / luck. Worse, it's perfectly possible for a student to hide their deficiencies on the test because of this. So even an educa

The Tea Party, or people happy to affiliate with them, currently control the Presidency, both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court (with more nominations likely), and many state Governorships and legislatures. They are running the country.

You speak as if you'd love for the Occupy Wall Street folks to have taken over the government.
Even though we all know that there's only one major party which has no scruples or morals and is willing to take any fringe loon into their ranks just to stay in power.
We're not gonna name them but it's The Party Formerly Known As The Republican Party.
You know... before they took side with fucking Nazis! Now they should probably be called Nazi Party Lite.
Or Diet Nazis. The New Nazi Taste?

All of which has led to so much "winning" that they are breaking all records with the number of people who are leaving the current government - even given as much leeway as possible in order to make the lists more comparable to earlier administrations. Like not counting various people who've served for "insignificant time".
And we can all agree - insignificant service is the key attribute of this administration.
So even in such an unfair comparison - they are beating all other administrations in recent history.

Meanwhile there are still literally hundreds of unfilled key positions.
And that's while they control EVERYTHING in the government.

So much winning...

I'm not going to even try convincing you of how idiotic you are, but for others who might read that post...

1. The whole "neoliberal" accusation is a catch-all slur hurled at anyone who has the audacity to not want to go whole-hog down the road to communism. Socialism is fine for things that the private market cannot or should not provide, such as health care. And in fact, Hillary Clinton has been fighting for universal health care since the early 1990s--it's one of the reasons that right-wingers hate her so badly, because as first lady, she was doing that instead of being a nice, demure housewife. For everything else, the free market is the best way to go. The best systems of government in the world are a healthy mix of both, but the trick is in finding the right balance. Bill Clinton did a great job starting us down that road from Reagan's/Bush's deregulate everything strategy, and Obama did a great job pushing us further, as evidenced by the improvement in our situation today. This notion that anything short of turning the US into a communist country is "neoliberal" is idiocy pushed by the Tea Party of the left. It's also a great way to turn off the public-at-large. As a famous man once said, "if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow."

2. Clinton's "superpredator" comment wasn't racist. It was an offhand comment that she admits she shouldn't have used in referring to how gangs at the time were no longer just groups of kids innocently hanging out. And in that respect, she was right--at the time crime was skyrocketing and there was a massive public demand that actions be taken to bring it down. And actions were taken. And it was brought down.

But this one comment keeps coming up from Bernie Bros as "evidence" that Clinton is racist. The reason this one quote comes up every time is because in reality, Clinton has a consistent record of fighting hard against racism. That's why she was endorsed by virtually every civil rights leader and won the black vote in the primaries by over 50 points. The notion that Clinton is racist is a ludicrous lie invented and propagated by the right-wing nuts, and believed by gullible left-wing nuts who are looking for any excuse, no matter how farfetched, to hate her.

3. Yes, I flatly deny that her voting record looks like a money stuffed republican. As a senator, she consistently voted for policies that benefited the poor and middle class, not the rich.

4. No, Trump supported Bernie because it was a split in the vote among liberals. And Trump has this uncanny knack for appealing to stupid people. The fact that you listened to him means... well... there's no tactful way to say it. You're a stupid person. And Trump's tactic worked, creating this "I'm going to vote for Jill Stein" bullshit. To be fair, Democrats were doing the same thing, trying to exploit the "Never Trump" split in the Republican party. The difference is that unlike liberals who buy into the opposition's divisive rhetoric and propaganda, conservatives stick to their ideological guns with religious-like fervor. This will continue being a problem into the foreseeable future because while both sides have stupid people, one side's stupid people are malleable enough for this tactic to actually be effective.

5. Russia helping Bernie Sanders is fact. It's a particularly inconvenient one that Sanders is lying about to this day, but that doesn't make it any less true.

They engaged in operations primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted

It always blows my mind when I see users who constantly post pro-Trump free market posts on slashdot calling for the death and hanging of someone or some organization who is doing just that!

Except last year the con artist said he'd lower drug prices. Then he picked a guy who is a former pharmaceutical executive who raised drug prices.

Even in February's State of the Union address he said he'd lower drug prices.

What has he done so far? Reduce regulations on oil and gas drillers, put a guy in charge of the EPA who is vowed and determined to let polluters off the hook, and started a trade war with China which is already costing Midwest farmers.

It always blows my mind when I see users who constantly post pro-Trump free market posts on slashdot calling for the death and hanging of someone or some organization who is doing just that!

Except last year the con artist said he'd lower drug prices. Then he picked a guy who is a former pharmaceutical executive who raised drug prices.

Even in February's State of the Union address he said he'd lower drug prices.

What has he done so far? Reduce regulations on oil and gas drillers, put a guy in charge of the EPA who is vowed and determined to let polluters off the hook, and started a trade war with China which is already costing Midwest farmers.

Lies, damn lies and statistics.
Seriously.
That analysis leaves out any hint of context.

The US pharma business isn't ruthless capitalism, its massive corporate welfare on the back end and ruthless exploitation of the customer on the front end. Big pharma spends about 2x on marketing that they spend on R&D.

Trump is not a criminal target of the investigation.

So now I'm wondering how unusual it is to have a general warrant on a sitting president, culminating to a raid of Trump's attorney, breaching attorney client privilege.

The DNC and their media lapdogs have been running with this collusion narrative for over a year, it has not resulted in impeachment, so now it is time to try to at least reap something from what they've sown in preparation for November.

I'm glad they are pulling this stunt. It's time once more to point out that the source of the DNC hacking narrative, their email server, was never subjected to an independent third party security audit, nor was it ever turned over to the FBI.

Anyway, I suppose it's better than killing Tigers and other endangered species for their bone(r)s because some old guys can't get a proper erection any more.

Why do you libs have to make everything about President Trump?

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Yeah, did you read where the Democratic Party files lawsuit alleging Russia, the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks conspired to disrupt the 2016 campaign?

The clear tactic here (to me, feel free to chime in), whether the DNC has standing or not, is to start the discovery proceeding whereby the DNC lawyers will ask the court for documents, devices, and depositions from all parties (f course, Trump is the target).

If successful, whether the DNC prevails or not, the DNC will get a shit load of free press for a long time to come.

Also, the DNC will be effectively have its "Mueller Investigation," even if Trump kills that process.

There's this idea that if prostitution was legal, men would rape less because they'd have an outlet for their sexual urges. This mistaken idea goes against the concepts of feminism and must be resisted every time it pops up.

Some of them might. Some of them might rape more. The correct response so such ideas is always "Show me the data."

Unfortunately for you, someone did just that, and the numbers strongly suggest that you're wrong. And lest you think the phenomenon is limited to Europe, a present Rhode Island as a counterpoint.

Disturbing as it might seem to many, legalized prostitution actually does reduce rape and sexual abuse. A lot. We're not talking about some small variation that could be attributed to chance. We're talking about 30% reduction within just two years. Much of this is likely because prostitutes in those areas feel safe admitting what they do to police, which means they can turn in people who commit crimes against them, thus putting people who harm other people behind bars.

More to the point, the argument in favor of legalizing prostitution is precisely the same as the argument for so-called "sancuary cities" that are hostile towards attempts to deport people solely for being undocumented immigrants. Sanctuary cities have lower crime rates as a direct result of those policies, because the immigrant community isn't afraid to report crimes. What possible reason, then, could anyone have for believing that legalized prostitution would not reduce crime in the same way?

Rape is a core feature of patriarchy.

And of course, preventing women from charging for sex means that any woman who feels that this is her only plausible way out of abject poverty is denied the opportunity to be so empowered legally, and therefore must therefore do so illegally. This means those women are much more at risk of abuse, at risk of getting caught up in networks of people who "protect" them in exchange for skimming part of the profit, because they aren't eligible for protection by law enforcement, and at risk of rape by former customers. And of course, they can't usefully report those rapes, because the first question out of the defense attorney's mouth will be, "How did you know the defendant," and if the witness's answer is, "Your honor, I plead the fifth amendment," the case isn't going to go well for the prosecution.

Anti-prostitution laws actually contribute to the subjugation of women. They don't prevent it. Anyone who says otherwise is kidding him/herself. The numbers speak volumes, and they say you're wrong. Very wrong. Want to convince me otherwise? Show me your numbers, and tell me why your numbers are better.

Interestingly, high SAT scores have not been shown to be correlated to student achievement in college. In face, many colleges are moving to test-optional admission strategies after a 2014 study involving 123,000 students at 33 colleges showed virtually no statistical difference between GPA and graduation rates between students that did and did not submit standardized test scores.

The fact that there's no statistical difference between GPA and graduation rates between students that did and did not submit standardized test scores does not mean that there's no correlation between those test scores and achievement. In fact, there is such a correlation. See:
https://www.vox.com/cards/sat/...
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fullt...

Sadly, from my history of admissions work with my alma mater, the two highest correlating factors for academic success were: 1. parental income; and 2. one-or-more parents graduating from college. You might say #1 is probably highly correlated with #2 so a large driver of college success is a student fulfilling the expectations of their college educated parents, which sort of perpetuates the have vs have-not split.

This leads credence to the assertion in the GP that the quote about "I'm 100 percent convinced that talent is distributed uniformly across society. There's no data to suggest that if you happen to be born into a less well-to-do family you are somehow less intelligent" is wrong. There is a lot of evidence that this statement is just wrong. Here's one example:
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

And you are honestly wondering about your crime rate and why you have the biggest per-capita prison population on the planet?

That is a different problem. I'd say it's mostly related to the harsh punishments for drug usage or possession. But there's also the issue that once someone is convicted of a federal crime then they can no longer vote (mostly, it's complicated). The average citizen also doesn't care about the conditions of jails because "who cares about those filthy criminals." Then the jails themselves have more incentive to not rehabilitate inmates because they make more money if the inmates stay. Once an ex-con's out then it is almost impossible to get a job because nobody will hire an ex-con. In desperation many resort back to crime and end up back in jail.

I'd like to see a system more akin to Denmark. https://www.washingtonpost.com...

The crime rate and high incarceration rate is a bigger issue then simple unemployment.

While I think that increasing opportunity for undeserved communities is laudable, I do think that you should be honest about the issues in poor communities. From TFA:

I'm 100 percent convinced that talent is distributed uniformly across society. There's no data to suggest that if you happen to be born into a less well-to-do family you are somehow less intelligent.

This is just not true. SAT scores are or were roughly an IQ test. They show a clear correlation to income, as outlined in this article:

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

There may be any number of causes of this, but denying the facts will likely lead to under prepared students starting and failing at college.

Interestingly, high SAT scores have not been shown to be correlated to student achievement in college. In face, many colleges are moving to test-optional admission strategies after a 2014 study involving 123,000 students at 33 colleges showed virtually no statistical difference between GPA and graduation rates between students that did and did not submit standardized test scores.

Unfortunately a different study has also concluded that it is unlikely that adoption of test-optional admission policies would will boost enrollment of underrepresented minority and low-income students. The study examined 180 selective liberal arts colleges, 32 of which had adopted test-optional policies between 1992 and 2010. It compared colleges with test-optional policies against colleges that required test scores. The 32 test optional schools did not see any statistical increase in enrollment of low-income or black, latino, or native american students compared with the larger group of 180 schools. This result was unexpected, but the report authors hypothesized that this might be due to the fact that by de-emphasizing standarized tests, more weight was put on extra-curriculars and AP/IB coursework which continue to have unequal opportunities/access across income and minority status.

Sadly, from my history of admissions work with my alma mater, the two highest correlating factors for academic success were: 1. parental income; and 2. one-or-more parents graduating from college. You might say #1 is probably highly correlated with #2 so a large driver of college success is a student fulfilling the expectations of their college educated parents, which sort of perpetuates the have vs have-not split.

Next on the list that showed correlation is adjusted (i.e., no-extra points for AP/IB classes) High-school GPA in core-curricula classes (A's in underwater basket weaving don't count). The main complication with adjusted GPA comparison between applicants is normalizing them across schools (different grade inflation factors in different schools). In a highly selective school, it doesn't matter too much (most of your applicants will have mostly A's), but it's much more difficult to normalize the middle of the grading scales between disparate high schools to compare applicants.

The SAT II (subject test) showed a reasonably correlation to college GPA, but not graduation rates.

The general SAT score correlations to college success ranked below sustained (e.g., over 2 years) extracurricular activities, and coming from a well-known "feeder" school (a HS where lots of people apply to a specific college), but both showed weak-to-no correlation that varied from year-to-year like the generic SAT. The "feeder" effect seemed to indicate that groups of students that have a history of academic success tend to do better than isolated individuals (which indicated the advantage of support groups in college leading to higher college success).

Your mileage may vary, though...

Do you remember there was a hurricane, and since then, well, the president tossed a roll of paper towels around before going back to his golf game.

Ah, you forgot how he graded himself on his effort to aid Puerto Rico 10 out of 10.

While I think that increasing opportunity for undeserved communities is laudable, I do think that you should be honest about the issues in poor communities. From TFA:

I'm 100 percent convinced that talent is distributed uniformly across society. There's no data to suggest that if you happen to be born into a less well-to-do family you are somehow less intelligent.

This is just not true. SAT scores are or were roughly an IQ test. They show a clear correlation to income, as outlined in this article:

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

There may be any number of causes of this, but denying the facts will likely lead to under prepared students starting and failing at college.

Nice propaganda. The black men were not buying anything, were not customers, and refused to leave when asked 3 times to make room for paying customers.

Oh noes! People other than black men go to Starbucks every day and don't buy anything, are never asked to leave, corporate policy does not include calling the police, and the police don't arrest people other than black men who they purportedly didn't want to arrest, but oh sure, this time, this time, it wasn't racism. Just like all the other times it wasn't racism.

Yeah, maybe you can solve the problem with another beer summit, then blame Obama because you don't remember racism in the sixties, and you think the Negro was happy when they were singing in Song of the South and Gone with the Wind.

Fuck off with your racist bullshit. Being black isn't an excuse for trespassing.

Sure man, but being black is an excuse to blame somebody for doing something literally thousands of people do every day.

Enjoy reading about that one on Voat and Gab.ai.

If you're so fucking worried about blacks, what are you doing about the epidemic of young black men from single-parent homes killing other blacks? (Well, other then blaming whitey...)

What are you doing? Other than calling for their arrest, taking away the welfare for the children, and replacing the public schools with private religious indoctrination camps!

But actually, the Philadelphia police commissioner, Richard Ross, is black. And yet he was still wrong. It is not city policy to commit racist enforcement of the laws, and should not be in practice. Yet it is.

And if teachers weren't fairly paid there wouldn't be a long list of people applying to work as teachers.

If teachers were fairly paid, there wouldn't be a long list of shortages for teaching positions.

It's a damn shame that by allowing politicians to take money from corporations, the political parties of the United States have subordinated the interests of the public to the corporate oligarchs?

Oh, wait? You didn't know that corporate executive boards OWN both Parties? And that it's best when government is by the corporation, for the corporation?

Fixed that for you.

that could at least somewhat clarify Donald Trump's complaints about Amazon "not paying internet taxes."

It doesn't matter as Amazon already collects state sales tax for every state that has a sales tax, unlike say...Trump's own business which only collects sales tax for 3 states. The only clarity needed for Trumps comments are: he's an idiot that doesn't know what he's talking about.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

She won the most votes, but they were almost, if not completely, exclusive to urban counties.

Factually untrue. You can see a much different distribution if You bother to look.

Explain how an article from before the election shows how a statement about the election is incorrect please.

She won the most votes, but they were almost, if not completely, exclusive to urban counties.

Factually untrue. You can see a much different distribution if You bother to look.

Or I suppose you could say that Trump's voters were similarly confined to a few urban counties. I don't think you want to admit that though.

Hence the electoral college played out as it did; by design.

Even if the above were true, but as shown, it is false(sorry if you are an innocent victim of the misleading misrepresentation by supposed pundits), this is also not real, you cannot find one element in the Constitution that makes that by design, or even chance.

Sorry, but you're doubly in error. As noted, with the margins of around 100,000 votes in three states, all it would have taken in those thousands in urban counties and bam, Trump starts calling for a revolution again.